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Even a fish would stay out of trouble if it kept its mouth shut

I'm an unhappy riser -- anyone who's ever had to wake me up will attest to this. They might go a step farther and tell you I'm a belligerent, rabid b**ch in the A.M. I am -- especially when I wake up late.

Mornings have always been a challenge. And most people know better than to pick a fight with me while the gunk is fresh in my eyes. But for whatever reason my husband -- once again -- strays from the pack in this arena.

Too bad for me -- I've given him a buttload of ammunition since I started this blog. And there, of course, is the downside to admitting your foibles to the world. Someone will undoubtedly turn them around on you, and you -- like me in many a heated argument -- will be completely disarmed by your clever diction.

And so I was this morning.

I woke to my daughters screaming playfully, but alarmingly loud in the bathtub. The time on the clock was 8:10 a.m. giving Lily just 25 minutes to get dressed, fed and out the door to school. And seeing as you can't trust the average dad to dress a child -- especially a girl -- in something remotely fashionable, I leaped from my bed and ran to Lily's dresser -- which brings us back to the difference between Jerod's definition of clean and mine.

Jerod is an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of guy, where I believe the appearance on the inside is of equal importance to the outside appearance. That's not to say I practice this concept -- I've already admitted several times that I am dirt bag. Jerod, however, touts himself a clean freak.

No matter the time spend organizing Lily's drawers, Jerod will dump a fresh batch of clean clothes in whatever drawer he pleases. Nevermind that I created a shirt drawer, a pants drawer and a skirts-leggings-shorts drawer -- he mixes them all up. He even manages to leave all the ugly, stained clothes on top.

So I asked him this morning where Lily's pants were -- and the guns were out.

I walked into a trap by writing the night before how much harder it is to stay home with the children than it is to work in an office. Considering that my husband has been the stay-at-home parent -- that I have perhaps mentioned maybe once or twice that I would switch places with the "lucky bastard" any day -- he was a bit miffed, and my question about his putting-away-the clothes technique provided him the perfect opportunity to let me have it.

Being the morning grump that I am. I didn't take kindly to the attack, and I fought back rather lamely by swearing and crying a lot and organizing Ashlyn's dresser and cleaning out all of the junk from the guest room/office/my room/craft room -- let's call it the multipurpose room. I tried cleaning house to get back at my husband -- how dastardly of me.

And now that Hubby is gainfully employed, and I am the house bitch. The only revenge I can think of is doing everything enormously better than he did -- except cooking. I draw the line at cooking, even though I do it rather well when I choose to.

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/AB-E-NORMAL/ I'm a neurotic artist and writer who can't find a living-wage job in my field, because literacy and creativity aren't marketable skills. I used to be a newspaper reporter until the world dumped newspapers and newspapers dumped me with a heart felt "you are a great reporter, and this has nothing to do with your performance."